CIAO DATE: 09/04

USAF Transformation Flight Plan Highlights Space Weapons

Theresa Hitchens

Center for Defense Information

February 2004

For the first time in recent history, the U.S. Air Force has formally published a list of planned space weapons programs, including both anti–satellite weapons (ASATs) and terrestrial strike weapons. The “U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan,” dated November 2003 but only recently posted on the Air Force web site (www.af.mil) cites space as a major capability for enabling “transformation” of the service from its Cold War past to a modern force capable of meeting the threats of today and tomorrow.

While previous Pentagon and Air Force planning documents issued have focused on space as a critical future mission area since the inauguration of President George W. Bush, past documents have stopped short of calling for ASAT and space–strike weapon capabilities. Instead, documents such as the “U.S. Air Force Space Command Space Master Plan for FY 06” have spoken only of requirements for types of capabilities in space, using terms such as “space control” and “offensive and defensive counterspace.” Indeed, U.S. Air Force officials up to now have repeatedly stressed that there are no space weapons programs currently being funded.

While the Transformation Plan is looking ahead, and does not contain budget estimates for the programs identified as requirements, it does make it clear that space weapons are indeed envisioned as part of the future U.S. arsenal — and further that technologies to enable these weapon systems are now being researched and developed. The plan breaks out planned programs via time of desired deployment: near–term, defined as prior to 2010; mid–term, 2010–2015; and long–term, 2015 and beyond. ASAT capabilities, including destructive kinetic energy missiles and lasers, and space–strike weapons fall in the latter category.

Interestingly, the Air Force plan comes ahead of any formal change in the U.S. National Space Policy, last updated in 1996 by President Bill Clinton. While the Bush administration in 2002 launched a review of space policy, this effort so far has focused only on a few individual elements and has not addressed the larger question of the weaponization of space or U.S. space security strategy. However, there are numerous signs that the U.S. Defense Department is now using a different lens to interpret the standing policy. While the Clinton policy itself is vague — and some would argue even more forward leaning with regards to keeping U.S. options for space weapons development open — it widely has been interpreted up to now as requiring a presidential decision to allow any deployment (some would argue that the policy also was seen as embodying even a strong presumption against space weapons testing) of space weapons.

Recent Air Force pronouncements, however, have put forward what seems to be an alternate interpretation. The Space Master Plan (on p. 35) states that the National Space Policy actually requires development of counterspace capabilities, but with the caveat that a decision would be needed by either the president or the secretary of defense to employ (not deploy) such systems. It is unclear if this interpretation is now considered the official U.S. government policy, or simply an Air Force construction.

The section in the main body of the Transformation Flight Plan on protection of space assets and “negation” of the enemy assets includes a section called “Developing Transformational Capabilities,” that discusses program requirements to meet the plan’s overarching goals. These include:

:: “active, on–board” protection capabilities — which generally can be read as satellite systems equipped with some sort of “shoot–back” capability;

:: “full spectrum, sea, air, land and space–based offensive counterspace systems capable of prevention of unauthorized use of friendly space services and negating adversarial space capabilities from low earth up to [GEO] orbits” — this would obviously include space–based ASAT capabilities. This section goes on to note that: “The focus, when practical [,PRACTICAL,] will be on denying adversary access to space on a temporary basis.” The caveat of “when practical” obviously leaves open the option for development of debris–creating kinetic energy ASATs, despite an obvious Air Force bias against such systems in the past.

Most of the actual ASAT and space weapon projects are being designed for deployment in the 2015 and beyond timeframe, apparently based on technology research being started over the next five years. The programs of most potential concern include:

:: Air Launched Anti–Satellite Missile

:: Ground Based Laser

:: Orbital Transfer Vehicle

:: Space–Based Radio Frequency Energy Weapon

:: Space Maneuver Vehicle

:: Space Operations Vehicle

:: Hypervelocity Rod Bundles

Descriptions of the various programs are contained in Appendix D of the document. Those that don’t give a timeframe for deployment are mostly being envisioned for the long–term, i.e. after 2015. They include:

:: “Air Launch System: Would be a dedicated, all azimuth, weather avoiding, on demand (within 48 hours) system capable of launching a Space Maneuver Vehicle, Common Aero Vehicle or a Conventional Payload Module.

:: Air–Launched Anti–Satellite Missile: Would be a small air–launched missile capable of intercepting satellites in low earth orbit.

:: Common Aero Vehicle: Will be an unpowered, maneuverable, hypersonic glide vehicle deployed from a possible range of delivery vehicles such as an expendable or reusable small launch vehicle to a fully reusable Space Operations Vehicle. It will guide and dispense conventional weapons, sensors or other payloads world wide from and through space within one hour of tasking. It would be able to strike a spectrum of targets, including mobile targets, mobile time sensitive targets, strategic relocatable targets, or fixed hard and deeply buried targets. The Common Aero Vehicle’s speed and maneuverability would combine to make defenses against it extremely difficult. (Mid–term)

:: Counter Satellite Communications System: Will provide the capability to deny and disrupt an adversary’s space–based communications and early warning. (Near–term)

:: Counter Surveillance and Reconnaissance System: Will provide offensive counterspace counter surveillance/reconnaissance weapon acquisition program to deny, disrupt and degrade adversary space–based surveillance and reconnaissance systems. (Near–term)

:: Evolutionary Air and Space Global Laser Engagement (EAGLE) Airship Relay Mirrors: Will significantly extend the range of both the Airborne Laser and Ground–Based Laser by using airborne, terrestrial or space–based lasers in conjunction with space–based relay mirrors to project different laser powers and frequencies to achieve a broad range of effects from illumination to destruction.

:: Ground–Based Laser: Would propagate laser beams through the atmosphere to Low–Earth Orbit satellites to provide robust defensive and offensive space control capability.

:: Hypervelocity Rod Bundles: Would provide the capability to strike ground targets anywhere in the world from space.

:: Orbital Deep Space Imager: Will provide a predictive, near–real time common operating picture of space to enable space control operations. (Mid–term)

:: Orbital Transfer Vehicle: Would significantly increase the flexibility warfighting utility and protection of U.S. space assets while enabling on–orbit servicing of those assets.

:: Rapid Attack Identification Detection and Reporting System: A family of systems that will provide the capability to automatically identify when a space system is under attack. (Near–term)

:: Space–Based Radio Frequency Energy Weapon: Would be a constellation of satellites containing high–power radio–frequency transmitters that possess the capability to disrupt/destroy/disable a wide variety of electronics and national–level command and control systems. It would typically be used as a non–kinetic anti–satellite weapon.

:: Space–Based Space Surveillance System: Will be a constellation of optical sensing satellites to track and identify space forces in deep space to enable offensive and defensive counterspace operations. (Near–term)

:: Space Maneuver Vehicle: Would be a rapidly reusable orbital vehicle deployed from the Space Operations Vehicle or Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle that is capable of executing a wide range of space control missions.

:: Space Operations Vehicle: Would enable an on–demand spacelift capability with rapid turn–around, multiple standardized payloads, space vehicle maintenance, ISR, offensive and defensive counterspace, and space surveillance capabilities. The Space Operations Vehicle would also be one of the vehicles that would deploy the Common Aero Vehicle.”

Obviously, not all these planned systems are “weapons” per se, and some, particularly those programs related to space surveillance and tracking, have both capabilities beneficial both in peacetime and wartime, for both military and commercial satellites. Improved space surveillance is critical to tracking dangerous space debris, and helping spacecraft avoid potentially destructive collisions. Others of the systems could not be in fairness described as space weapons; for example, the Counter Satellite Communications System is essentially a modernized jamming system, and would not destroy a targeted satellite.

Others, however, are more worrisome. The Air–Launched Anti–Satellite Missile, for example, is obviously not going to have a “reversible and temporary” effect — a missile is either a kinetic kill vehicle or equipped with a payload (conventional explosives). As noted, such a system could backfire in creating dangerous space debris that could cause “fratricide” of U.S. military assets in space, or damage commercial satellites. Hypervelocity Rod Bundles, often dubbed “Rods from God,” are highly problematic both technically and cost–wise, but also because of their first–strike, preemptive nature.

Of most concern, however, is not the plan itself nor the specific programs included therein. It is the fact that the U.S. military is proceeding apace down a path toward space weaponization in what is essentially a public policy vacuum. There has been little debate among policy–makers and law–makers about the enormous strategic implications of a world with space weapons, and a unilateral U.S. move to become the first to acquire them. While many would argue that space weapons could give the United States an undeniable near–term edge in war–fighting, many others would argue that space weapons pose far too many risks and costs to be worth what would likely be only a temporary benefit. In its Transformation Plan, the U.S. Air Force has made it clear that the time for that debate to begin was yesterday.